Perspective
by Black Jaguar12
Summary: Perspective: (n) The interrelation in which a subject or its parts are viewed. Focuses on Boone and Shannon, Sayid and Sawyer, Michael and Locke, Charlie and Claire. Rated for thematic elements.


**A/N: **This is just a little piece I wrote about how some of the characters are feeling after the end of the third episode and some indeterminable time before the fourth episode. I watched the fourth episode before I wrote this so I had more insight to the characters (especially Locke). I do allude to their histories but nothing solid because we don't really know yet. So anything you can't find in the first four episodes I kinda used my knowledge of the characters and creative lisense to invent.

Also, sorry if the formatting is a little off, I'm not sure which to use for my computer yet.

Perspective

Perspective is a hard thing to have. Everything is altered because of every individual's differences and where they come from. People are set up by their past experiences, and current experiences are colored by their biases and expectations. Changed by their personality, what may be an insignificant altercation to one person may have a life-altering change on another.

Everyone is so different they cannot be expected to react in the same way to events or other people, although there is generally a communally accepted way to respond to certain events. When one person fails to meet the standard, it is a difficult thing to understand how they got there. They could go beyond the average and become a savoir and leader of the people, a Good Samaritan, or they could become socially inept and completely dependent.

Boone considered his sister. She was lying in the beach again, tanning. She was still thinking of her beauty as more important than everyone's survival as a group. She was acting like she couldn't try to salvage something, that everyone else needed to do such things for her.

He wasn't able to fold his mind around the idea that she found herself so helpless that she needed everything done for her. He didn't understand why she thought she was so special she deserved to be waited on hand and foot, like she had gone through twice as much as everyone else. He wished she would just deal like he had and get on with it.

Shannon was lying unmoving in the sand. Behind her sunglasses and her impassive facade, she was thinking just as furiously as her brother was. It is possible, that from her perspective, she _had_ gone through twice as much as everyone else. She was a sensitive person, having gone through her own personal crisis before.

She couldn't stop thinking about all the death going on around her, and the harshness of the life she found herself so abruptly living. She had personal problems, and they made her frail. Now, with the added stress of a terrible change, she wasn't able to be up to snuff. It was hard with only her depressing thoughts for company and the depressing scene around her.

She considered finding some company, but she just didn't have the energy. It was easier to just lie in the sand...

Michael carefully brushed sand off his hands. He lay back and shifted his shoulders, trying to get comfortable in a position where he could relax and keep an eye on Walt.

He stared at the forest past where Walt was playing fetch with Vincent, lost in thought. He was new to the whole dad thing, but one thing he was already too familiar with was the worry.

Two traumatic things had happened to Walt in one month. There was no way he could be properly adjusted. Yet, there he was, yelling and laughing and smiling, jumping around in the sand. Michael wondered what was going on behind his son's eyes.

Maybe he was trying not to think about it, just enjoy the moment. Maybe he was pretending. Maybe he was really angry, maybe sad. Maybe... A thousand maybes. Michael sighed. There was no way to know but to ask. But not right now. He wanted to watch his son play, like a normal child, at least for a little while.

Someone else was thinking of Walt as he stared down at his Backgammon board. Locke moved a piece, then carefully shifted the board so he could play against himself.

He glanced at Walt playing with Vincent and smiled. That was good. There was hope there and something beautiful. It was a miracle.

This island was _good_. Everyone was benefiting from it, he was sure. It was really a paradise. Something like Eden.

Sayid adjusted the tarp, checking for leaks and the level of water left inside. It was about half full. The way everyone was drinking, they would run out soon if they didn't get more rain. He would have to talk to everyone about conserving the water.

He trudged to the edge of the forest and broke off several broad leaves, then brought them over to the water and carefully set them on top to shade the water and slow down the process of evaporation, although it wouldn't do much good.

When that was done, he straightened and peered along the beach, looking for more problems. For once he saw no immediate emergencies, and he decided to have some time for himself.

He wandered along the wreckage, looking for a shady spot uninhabited and isolated. Finding one, he slowly lowered himself to the sand and relaxed his muscles. There was so much to do, so much which was going wrong for them. No one had any idea where they were, other people who had come to the island had been killed and not rescued, they were running out of food and they were at the mercy of the skies for fresh water plus-

He ordered himself to stop worrying about the situation for a moment and just enjoy the sound of the waves, the slight breeze and the warmth. It took a while for him to pretend that nothing was wrong, but gradually, his eyelids lowered and he dozed.

Sawyer stared at the rise and fall of the terrorist's chest. He felt himself growing irritated with him for lying there, so peaceful. He curled his lip and jerkily pulled a cigarette from his back pocket and lit it with a savage flick from his lighter. He took a long draw, then blew the smoke out.

Why that man was able to lie there, sleeping, when _he_ couldn't sleep for the nightmares he didn't know. And it incensed him. He wanted peaceful sleep. He wanted a clear conscience. And that man, that man whose people were _terrorist_s was sleeping right in front of him without a worry in the world.

By habit, he reached into his pocket and drew out the letter, running his fingers over the folds and the raised pattern where there was writing on the other side. He sat still, pensive, for a moment, then abruptly shoved the letter back into his pocket.

He ground his cigarette out into the sand and gave a harsh laugh. It was all fucked up.

_Claire frowned. It had been a while since she had felt her baby move. She ran her hands over her stomach worriedly. There was no movement. She felt her a pang of fear and tried to quell it. _

_This had happened before. He could just not be moving. There was nothing unusual about that. Babies weren't constantly in motion. The doctor had told her this. She wasn't to expect that. There was _nothing_ to worry about. There was nothing wrong._

_She checked the position of the sun. It was two hours since the last time she'd felt him move. But that had happened before, surely. The longest he hadn't moved was... she wasn't going to think of that._

No more,_ she told herself sternly. _There's nothing wrong. Nothing.

_Hours later, he still hadn't moved. There was something wrong. No, there wasn't. But still, there was the possibility... _No

_Claire firmly told herself there was nothing wrong, but she knew she didn't believe it. She wrapped her arms around her middle and miserably tried to start breathing slowly and evenly._

Charlie looked with concern at Claire where she was sleeping a short distance down the beach. He'd heard it was nearly impossible to sleep well when pregnant, but this looked more like some kind of nightmare. She was frowning deeply and breathing slightly irregularly: shallow and quick. One of her hands was pressed against her abdomen and the other lay in the sand, twitching occasionally.

He had just made up his mind to wake her up when she jerked violently, and sat up, gasping. Immediately her hands rubbed against her stomach. She smiled widely and laughed quietly to herself.

He thought she was beautiful. She was just happy to be there, in the sand, healthy.

Not like him. He was tainted. He was sick. He was guilty. Habitually, his hand brushed the pocket where he'd put his stash. Suddenly angry at the world, he kicked out, sending a fountain of sand into the area.

There was so much shit going on. He was stranded on an island and no one was going to find him and there was something out there, and he was addicted and he was going to run out and it was all shit anyway.

He folded his arms and leant back, looking angrily around. His eyes fell on Claire again. She was talking to her baby, smiling and drawing circles on her belly. He felt his furious expression slowly melt away as he watched her. She was so happy. He wanted to be like her.

"I felt you move, I did. 'Cause it was just a dream. " Claire smiled and kept babbling to her baby. He was going to be so cute, she could just imagine.

She grinned, so delighted to have her baby safe and the terror of the nightmare gone. Her heartbeat was slowing down and the knots in her stomach were easing. She had been awoken by her baby hiccuping. She savored the strange feeling of another entity inside her moving separately than her.

She laughed again, feeling like she could burst from happiness. Nothing mattered except that she was all right and her baby was all right. Everything was going to be okay.


End file.
